The film, based on the ancient Greek poem by Homer, stars Matt ​Damon as the Greek hero Odysseus and follows his perilous journey home after fighting the Trojan War. It ​is Nolan’s first movie since the 2023 blockbuster Oppenheimer, which won Academy Awards in several categories, including ⁠directing and best picture.

“There’s just palpable excitement across the domestic market this weekend for The Odyssey,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s ​president of domestic theatrical distribution.

The film topped the weekend’s domestic and global box office, according to Rentrak. It had broad appeal ​with moviegoers, with half of ticket-buyers between the ages of 18 and 34 years old, Orr told Reuters.

The strong opening performance of the film is a testament to Nolan’s popularity among moviegoers.

“Modern audiences should not be underestimated on their knowledge of film and filmmakers,” said Paul Dergarabedian, ​Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends. “And that passion they have for film is manifest in their devotion to Christopher Nolan. It ​really is a thing.”

The Odyssey cost $250m to make. It received an A CinemaScore from filmgoers who attended opening-night screenings, and an audience ‌rating ⁠of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film ranks among Nolan’s biggest opening weekends.

Factoring in inflation, The Odyssey ranks as his third-highest-opening film globally, behind 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises and 2008’s The Dark Knight, which brought in inflation-adjusted totals of $358.5m and $304m, respectively, in worldwide ticket sales during their opening weekends.

Half the moviegoers elected to see The Odyssey in an enhanced format in the US and ​Canada, including 23 per cent at IMAX, ​according to Universal.

Fans began snapping ⁠up tickets for The Odyssey a year ago when seats at select IMAX theaters went on sale. IMAX said demand for tickets was so high that more than 50 theaters across North America ​added show times between midnight and 7am.

IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond said the company had ​booked $50m in ⁠advance ticket sales, its strongest pre-sales ever. He has extolled the use of IMAX cameras and 70mm film to capture the sweeping narrative, generating more buzz around the movie.

“It was just a well-made — almost perfectly made — movie in many respects,” said Gelfond.

Most scholars believe ⁠the epic ​poem attributed to Homer was composed in the seventh or eighth century ​BC and was sung and passed on orally before it was written down. Nolan’s film centres on a portion of Odysseus’ homecoming, where he encounters ​gods and monsters, storms and tragedy.

Cover photo: Universal Pictures

The scene captures the reality that disabled Pakistanis know all too well: our cities and their infrastructures — schools, workplaces, and public spaces — are often inaccessible. A simple outing can require careful planning, transportation arrangements, and the hope that there will be a ramp, an accessible entrance, or even a functioning washroom.

Yet, during my research on and interviews of disabled women across Pakistan, I learned that accessibility is about far more than physical infrastructure. It’s about attitudinal and societal barriers as well, which are informed by the complex socio-cultural context of Pakistan. Despite being invisible, they are just as effective in hindering accessibility as a flight of stairs or lack of sign language interpretation.

As a disabled researcher myself, I spent more than six months in 2025 interviewing 21 disabled women across Pakistan to understand what disability advocacy meant to them, the challenges they faced in pursuing it, and the social and cultural norms that shaped their participation in public life.

One finding in particular surprised me. When I asked participants about the greatest barriers they faced, I expected to hear them talk about inaccessible buildings, discrimination, or lack of employment opportunities. Instead, shifting — or transferring between surfaces — emerged as one of the greatest challenges facing women with physical disabilities.

Shabana*, a 49-year-old wheelchair user with muscular dystrophy who is an associate professor and disability advocate of more than a decade, explained that for her, the greatest barrier was not education, employment, or even the wheelchair itself. It was shifting: getting from a wheelchair into a car, from a car into a classroom, or navigating staircases and other inaccessible environments. These everyday transitions, often taken for granted by others, required constant planning, physical effort, and emotional vulnerability.

For years, she was able to continue her education because friends helped her transfer between wheelchairs and vehicles. Looking back, she reflected that without those friends, completing her master’s degree — which ultimately opened up a world of professional opportunities — would have been nearly impossible.

Shabana also told me about another disabled woman who was able to attend college only because her brother carried her onto his motorcycle every day. When they arrived on campus, he would transfer her into a wheelchair and help her get to her classes. She completed her education this way. But then her brother got married and his responsibilities changed. He became less available and there was no replacement support system on which she could rely to further her education or career.

She also felt hesitant to ask for her brother’s help now that he had, in her words, “a family of his own”. As a result, despite being educated and capable of working, she remains largely confined to her home because she has no reliable way to travel independently.

These lived experiences of disabled women in Pakistan reveal a dimension of accessibility that is rarely discussed in public debates. When policymakers think about disability inclusion, they often think about visible infrastructure: ramps, elevators, accessible buses, and designated parking spaces. These investments are important and long overdue.

Several women I interviewed spoke about being invited to television studios, advocacy events, or cultural centres only to encounter inaccessible entrances, missing ramps or the absence of elevators.

But disabled Pakistani women frequently depend on another form of infrastructure that remains almost entirely invisible — female relatives, sisters, friends, attendants, and caregivers who make mobility possible. For many women, this support is not simply a matter of convenience. It is shaped by deeply held religious and cultural norms regarding modesty, privacy, and physical contact.

Jannat*, who is also a wheelchair user, explained that if a disabled man needs help getting into a vehicle, a driver or stranger may be willing to lift him. For a disabled woman, the situation is often more complicated. Assistance with transferring between a wheelchair and a vehicle or navigating inaccessible spaces may require physical contact and many families are uncomfortable with such assistance being provided by a na-mehram (unrelated) man. As a result, women often require a female companion or family member to accompany them whenever they leave home.

This reality is rarely reflected in accessibility planning.

The challenge becomes even more apparent in a society where women’s mobility is already shaped by concerns surrounding safety and family honour. Many women repeatedly described how the families of disabled women worried, in the words of Batool*, “double or triple times more” about their movements than those of disabled men. Batool is an experienced disability rights advocate who regularly travels internationally for advocacy work, yet she observed that concerns about accompaniment, safety, and reputation continued to shape how disabled women’s mobility was viewed. Questions about who would accompany them, who would help them transfer between spaces, and whether they would be safe in public were constant considerations.

Fauzia*, a disability rights advocate in her thirties who uses crutches after being disabled by polio during childhood, summarised these attitudes bluntly: if people doubt a disabled woman’s ability to navigate the world independently, they also question her ability to protect herself. These concerns are not entirely unfounded. Women with disabilities face significantly higher risks of harassment, abuse, and exploitation than many other groups.

The women I spoke to described carefully selecting ride-hailing app drivers, travelling with trusted female companions, avoiding certain spaces, and sometimes concealing aspects of their disabilities to reduce vulnerability.

The result is that mobility becomes a complex negotiation involving accessibility, gender, safety, religion, economics, and family support. And economics matters. Several women described spending substantial portions of their income on drivers, attendants, and transportation.

Shabana, who has high support needs, explained that more than half of her salary goes toward mobility-related expenses. She maintains multiple attendants because if one is unavailable, she risks missing work altogether. For women from lower-income households, such arrangements are often impossible. Jane*, a blind educator and disability rights advocate, shared stories of disabled women who had to turn down advocacy opportunities because they simply could not afford the cost of travel. The result was not only a loss for those women personally but also for the broader disability movement, which lost valuable voices, perspectives, and leadership.

This raises an important question: what would accessibility look like if it were designed with disabled women in mind?

The answer is not to dismiss cultural or religious values that many families consider important. Nor is it to frame these values as obstacles that must be removed. Rather, it is to recognise the realities they create and design services accordingly.

Imagine trained female accessibility assistants at hospitals, universities, transport hubs, and government offices. Imagine subsidised attendant services for disabled women seeking education or employment. Imagine accessible transport systems that recognise the additional support some women require in order to travel safely and with dignity. Such initiatives would not replace ramps, elevators, or accessible transport, rather, they would complement them.

Accessibility is often treated as a technical issue that can be solved through architecture and engineering alone. My research suggests otherwise.

For many disabled women in Pakistan, the question is not simply whether a building has a ramp. It is whether they can reach that building, enter it, navigate it, and return home with dignity. For many, the barrier is not the wheelchair, it is everything that must happen before and after the wheelchair moves. Until our understanding of accessibility reflects that reality, inclusion will remain more aspiration than achievement.

*Names have been changed to maintain anonymity

The Academy Award-winning actor plays the queen of Sparta in Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey. Her costume for the role included pieces made by Pakistani artist Misha Japanwala, who posted about it on Instagram on Monday.

Speaking to W Magazine, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick — whose work on Nolan’s Oppenheimer earned her an Oscar nod — said they “really had to get down to the realism” of the character and it was Nyong’o who suggested they bring on Japanwala.

The artist created an asymmetrical neck and shoulder plate in bronze, which was worn by the actor like a capelet over her gown in a scene where Helen and her husband King Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) host Odysseus’ son Telemachus (Tom Holland) in Sparta.

Mirojnick described the piece as “a broken statue.”

Another piece Japanwala created for the film was a bronze choker that Nyong’o wore with a chainmail kaftan in the scene where Helen and Menelaus bid Telemachus farewell.

Mirojnick said she was initially hesitant to ask the actor to wear the outfit due to its weight, but Nyong’o replied, “I’ve worn more pounds of Chanel pearls. I think I could do that.”

Nyong’o and Japanwala have known each other for some time now, with the artist making the actor a custom breastplate for the 2023 Tony Awards.

Nyong’o was also a guest at Japanwala’s wedding in Karachi in 2022 and borrowed a sari and jewellery from the artist for opening night of the musical version of Indian director Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding.

Although Rubbani comes from a design background, becoming a mother changed the way she began looking at both nature and art. Nature has always remained central to her practice, but motherhood became, for her, its most sacred and powerful expression. Rather than depicting motherhood as an ideal or a social role, the exhibition approaches it as something instinctive, intimate and deeply grounded in nature.

The series was inspired by the artist’s visit to Europe, where she encountered centuries of artworks celebrating maternal relationships. Images of the Madonna and Child and Michelangelo’s Pietà became important points of reference for Rubbani, not only because of their artistic significance but because of how naturally motherhood continues to exist within public and cultural spaces.

Returning home, Rubbani became increasingly aware of the absence of similar imagery and conversations surrounding motherhood in Pakistan. This realisation became the starting point for the exhibition.

A recent exhibition in Karachi drew upon classical religious imagery and personal experiences to offer an intimate meditation on nature, identity and motherhood

In works from the Hold Close to My Heart series, Rubbani digitally manipulates and reconstructs historical imagery into compositions that feel both familiar and contemporary. The figures retain the tenderness of classical iconography, yet they no longer belong to a specific place or time. Their identities remain deliberately anonymous, allowing the emotional relationship between mother and child to become the true focus of each work.

One of the exhibition’s most striking visual elements is the treatment of the faces in the Hold Close to My Heart series. Instead of facial features, Rubbani fills these spaces with countless fine vertical lines. The lines do not erase identity. They can be read as a reflection of the discipline, emotional labour and quiet resilience that motherhood often demands. At the same time, by removing individual identities, Rubbani allows these figures to represent something larger than a single person and become symbols of motherhood itself.

This dialogue between past and present continues in Woven in Love, where biblical and mythological references are reinterpreted through the artist’s own visual language. Rather than borrowing these familiar images as symbols of devotion alone, Rubbani reshapes them into reflections on contemporary motherhood, care and nurture.

The technical execution of the works is equally compelling. In One Dusky Evening and On the Grass, Rubbani combines digital manipulation with intricate hand-drawn line work so seamlessly that, at first glance, the images almost appear to have delicate tracing sheets layered over them. This illusion of transparency encourages viewers to move closer, where the precision and patience behind every mark gradually become visible.

In Under Your Guideline, the painstaking accumulation of fine linear marks demonstrates the artist’s remarkable control of the medium. The dialogue between digital technology and traditional mark-making is handled with sensitivity, with neither medium overpowering the other.

The muted greys, pale greens and soft blues create a quiet atmosphere, while occasional accents of red gently guide the viewer’s attention through the compositions. This restrained colour palette allows the lines to remain the strongest visual element, without overwhelming the delicate emotional tone of the exhibition.

At times, the reliance on familiar religious compositions makes certain works feel closely tied to their historical references. However, Rubbani’s personal experience and thoughtful handling of the imagery prevents them from becoming mere reinterpretations. Instead, they become reflections on care, memory and the universality of maternal love.

In a society where motherhood is often treated as a responsibility rather than something openly celebrated, and where conversations around maternal care largely remain within the private sphere, Rubbani’s exhibition brings these experiences into public view. Whether one enters the exhibition as a mother, a child or simply as a viewer, the works leave enough space for personal memories to surface, making the exhibition feel both intimate and universally relatable.

‘Where Lines Hold’ was on display at the Sanat Initiative in Karachi from June 30-July 9, 2026

Originally published in Dawn, EOS, July 19th, 2026

The actor was speaking to journalist Mehdi Hasan early on Monday morning in the aftermath of Spain’s victory when the topic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet rooting for Argentina came up. Argentine President Javier Milei, meanwhile, was quoted as saying he was the “proudest Zionist president in the world”.

Hasan said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had, in contrast, been an outspoken critic of Israel and had led his country to join the genocide trial against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

Bardem said the notion of the two competitors representing Israel and Palestine was right, but with the caveat that leaders don’t necessarily represent the will of their people.

“But it’s true that at this high level of encountering and conflict, it’s true that when a president is supporting so openly a person who is a war criminal like Netanyahu, then you want to really support the other team,” the actor said.

Bardem said Milei proudly supporting what the actor referred to as “a full genocide” and people like Netanyahu and Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir associating themselves with Argentina was “not fair” to the South American country.

“I don’t think it’s fair because there are many people from Argentina that really don’t support Milei, as many people in the States that don’t support [US President Donald] Trump.”

Both Bardem and Hasan shared a laugh over visuals from the trophy presentation, where Spanish players seemed to be awkwardly waiting for President Trump to leave the stage so they could get their team picture.

“He wanted to be in the picture, but it was great how these players who were looking at him like, ‘no, we have to make the picture without you.’ And as soon as you leave, we’re taking the picture. So he had to leave. And I was very proud of that as well,” the Spaniard said of his national team.

Bardem said he was surprised to see so many people around the world support his country, but could understand why.

“I am glad that the shift is happening in the people’s reaction towards, in this case, genocide and war crimes. And I think it’s because the actions that we’ve been witnessing through all these years towards the Palestinian population are so atrocious, they are so horrible to understand or make sense of, that anybody with minimal common sense understands that this is wrong.”

The actor said that just like Milei and Trump didn’t represent their nations as a whole, “extreme leaders like Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir and all his cabinet are also not a representation of the Jewish community”.

The HUM TV drama, which premiered on Friday, shows Khan’s character dismissing his wife (played by Urwa Hocane) after the magic of their marriage had worn off. The actor is now telling his fans not to do that.

In a story posted on Monday, Khan said, “Ignoring your partner’s needs and still expecting a happy relationship is like ignoring [that] your plants need water and still expecting a beautiful garden.”

The actor acknowledged that his portrayal had been enraging for audiences, even sharing some of the reactions on Instagram. One fan said the episode was so frustrating that she would’ve broken her TV if it was within striking distance. She called the show a “brilliant portrayal of our society”.

Another fan had a message for the world. She said men need to realise that their partners need more than just their money and sometimes a kind gesture or words of appreciation can do much more than money ever will. “Even if you get her a jewellery set worth 1.5 crores (Rs15 million), but don’t appreciate her once when she puts it on, it loses all its value to her.”

For women, she asked them to be independent and invest in themselves. She said there was a lesson to be learnt in Hocane’s character about girls continuing to work on their “education and self-growth”.

A third fan said Khan’s character had “managed to raise the blood pressure of every single woman watching Aap Ki Izzat” and that the drama might soon have to be made part of advice cardiologists give out.

In Aap Ki Izzat, Khan plays Tabish, a wealthy man who is initially a loving husband to his wife Bina. But 14 years and two children later, he has lost all interest in her.

Joining them in the cast is Sania Saeed, who plays Tabish’s doting mother who believes her son can do no wrong. The show has been written by Umera Ahmed and directed by Saife Hassan.

The lawmaker was responding to a post where a TikTok creator was talking about receiving a payout from the platform which allowed her to buy a car and several thousand rupees in clothes and accessories.

“The more shamelessness you spread on TikTok Live, the more you earn. May God shelter us, these people spread so much filth on TikTok Live,” Butt — who is also the chairperson of the Punjab Women Protection Authority — said in her message.

“Unfortunately, these people are the heroes of our youth. Nowadays, everyone wants to get rich overnight, everyone wants a shortcut,” the MPA wrote.

“As many benefits as social media may have, there are just as many downsides. The most poisonous [of all these creators] are the family vloggers and those on TikTok Live who are corrupting our children.”

This isn’t the first time Butt has come out with critique of what goes on on the internet. Last month, she posted a stern message asking when “the minds of people like Falak Shabir will stop fixating on women’s clothing”.

That post came after the singer had called on the MPA’s party leader, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, to take action against people who wear “short dresses in the bazaars and streets” of Punjab.

Butt also weighed in on the controversy surrounding television host Fiza Ali and her husband, who picked her up like a bag of flour on live TV.

The lawmaker termed the incident as “regrettable”, adding that adults should “demonstrate good morals and decorum so that children and the younger generation can learn something better”. Ali’s young daughter was on the programme too, and laughed hysterically as her parents played around.

Marshals confirmed the arrest of 39-year-old Andrew Tate, a self-professed misogynist, and his younger brother, but said that because the arrest warrant was sealed, “we are not able to disclose the charges.” US news outlet TMZ posted video of law enforcement officers placing the men in handcuffs and escorting them into waiting vehicles. Asked by an onlooker if he had something to say, Tristan Tate did not respond, the footage posted on X showed.

The UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement that the Tates, who face charges in Britain, were arrested by US marshals.

UK prosecutors will be seeking the brothers’ extradition.

The Tate brothers face 59 charges in total — 42 against Andrew and 17 against Tristan, British authorities said on Sunday.

 “We have decided to prosecute Andrew and Tristan Tate for further offences including rape, arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation and offences relating to indecent images of a child,” Malcolm McHaffie, head of CPS’s Special Crime Division, said in the statement.

 “The CPS has requested the extradition of the Tates from the US,” he said, adding that the latest charges stem from receipt of new evidence from Bedfordshire Police that bring the total number of alleged victims in the Tates case to seven.

Earlier this year, police in Hertfordshire, north of London, said it was reopening a probe into rape and sexual assault allegations made by women against Andrew Tate between 2014 and 2015.

They also face separate rape and human trafficking allegations brought by different women and investigated by Bedfordshire Police, which covers their hometown of Luton, also north of London.

The Tate brothers are also accused of tax evasion and money laundering in the UK.

Their attorney, Joseph McBride, said in a press release that the brothers “are innocent.”

“We are confident that once a competent judge sees the facts, and once the Department of Justice confronts this egregious abuse of its own authority, Andrew and Tristan Tate will walk free,” McBride said.

The Tates are dual British-US citizens who have been avid supporters of US President Donald Trump.

In March 2025, the US state of Florida launched a criminal investigation against them. The status of that investigation is unclear.

Andrew Tate is one of the most prominent proponents of the so-called “manosphere” network of communities, many of them online, that focus on traditional masculinity, anti-feminism, and self-improvement.

He promotes his divisive views, often incorporating alpha-male and aggressively misogynistic themes, to millions on social media including 10.8 million followers on X.

In Romania, where they have been based in recent years, the Tates face allegations of trafficking minors, sexual intercourse with a minor and money laundering.

The project from ARY Digital stars Nameer Khan and Durefishan Saleem alongside Munawar and was written by Umera Ahmed.

In the teaser, Saleem and Khan are shown together in the US — possibly in love — while Munawar’s character appears to be an upper-middle class Pakistani man who is dedicated to his faith.

Khan appears to be in contrast to this with his lifestyle, with Saleem leaning both ways in different scenes. There are references to the Holy Quran and Islamic teachings in the teaser, hinting at religion being a prominent part of the narrative.

A montage of scenes, with one showing Saleem slapping Khan and another showing a character shattering a glass on the floor, shows there’s likely a good deal of tension in the drama, although details of the plot remain under wraps for now.

Aside from details on the story, we also don’t have a release date, with the teaser saying the show is “coming soon”.

What we do know is that the channel describes it as “a powerful tale of destiny, heartbreak, and redemption.”

We also know, from previous posts made by Munawar, that Sahar Hashmi, Romaisa Khan, Sania Saeed and Saba Hameed are part of the show’s star cast.

Dar-e-Nijaat is directed by Saqib Khan and is the first drama serial from 3’s Entertainment, a production led by Munawar and Sonya Khan.

The custom silk tie was by New York-based Indian menswear designer Aahan Tandon, who also shared the news on his Instagram page.

The tie featured the distinctive geometrical shapes synonymous with ajrak in light blue and red. Ajrak, the form of block-printing indigenous to Sindh, can also be found in India, particularly among the Khatri community in Gujarat’s Kutch.

In Pakistan, we’re well aware of how important ajrak is to Sindhis.

While speaking about this importance, Nandita Bhavnani, the Indian author of Sindhnama, said, “Today, the Ajrak of Sindh has become a symbol of cultural identity: it is Sindh’s signature textile.”

The film The Odyssey features a star-studded cast, including Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel and Mia Goth, among many others. An adaptation of the ancient Greek epic poem, the film follows Odysseus as he embarks on a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca following the Trojan war.

The film released in cinemas around the world on July 17.

By the mid-1950s, the young man from Peshawar had done everything expected of him. He had studied at Lawrence College in Murree before gaining admission to Aligarh Muslim University, followed by stints at Columbia and then Harvard, training not as an artist but as an engineer. Gulgee’s future appeared settled, respectable, even enviable. But if he had followed that course to its end, odds are he may not have found himself being written about in these pages.

Somewhere along the way, engineering had lost its lustre for him. He wanted to paint. But what now may seem like the inevitable path for him to chart — after all, as demonstrated by his corpus, how could this man be anything other than an artist? — was a decision fraught with tangible jeopardy at the time.

Upon hearing this confession about dreams of artistic grandeur, Gulgee’s father, Sher Ali Ismaili, was unconvinced. Before abandoning a profession for which his son had travelled halfway across the world to qualify, Ismaili instructed Gulgee to first seek the advice of Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III. An appointment was arranged and a ticket booked for Cannes, where Gulgee explained to the religious leader that he wished to become an artist.

The Aga Khan’s response was measured rather than romantic and entirely befitting of a man who had played no small part in the fight for the creation of Pakistan: “Look, Gulgee, your country needs people like you — qualified, trained people. First, you give a few years — say five — to your country and, when you finish that, you can do what you like.” Gulgee obeyed.

A recently published coffee table book pieces together the remarkable life of the legendary late artist Gulgee through tales recounted by family and friends, critical essays and archival images, revealing a man every bit as fascinating as his art.

He returned to Pakistan and worked as a dutiful engineer on the design of the Warsak Dam in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. When the five years were over and his promise fulfilled, Gulgee resigned, declaring, “I will polish shoes, but I won’t do engineering. I will paint.” Hence, before the portraits of kings and presidents, before the explosive abstractions and luminous lapis lazuli mosaics, there was simply a young man at a crossroads trying to negotiate duty, expectation, vocation and ambition.

In many ways, it is precisely this sort of story that makes Gulgee Museum: The Handbook such a richly rewarding publication. Edited by John McCarry and developed alongside the opening of the Gulgee Museum by Gulgee’s son Amin Gulgee, the volume brings together essays by writers, critics, artists and family members alike.

But, having inevitably breathed in Gulgee’s art all throughout my life, in one form or another, I was far more interested in what personal insights this book had to offer into Gulgee the man. And I’m happy to report that it is Gulgee the man — his upbringing, humour, friendships, obsessions, discipline and contradictions — who emerges as the book’s most compelling creation.

As recounted by his brother Noorali in the book, Gulgee’s birth name was Abdul Mohammad Ismaili. “Gulgee” was simply an affectionate name given to boys in Peshawar, meaning flower. In fact, even the surname ‘Ismaili’ carries its own story. Gulgee’s father had abandoned the family surname ‘Rajput’ after Aga Khan III bestowed upon him the surname Ismaili.

In many ways, the book is at its strongest whenever those who knew Gulgee speak with candour about their memories of him. The artist Wahab Jaffer, who passed away just a few weeks ago, recalls first meeting Gulgee in 1972 through artist and gallery-owner Ali Imam, a stalwart of Karachi’s early art scene. Gulgee quickly became mentor, guide and, in Jaffer’s words, a “father figure.” But it is his description of watching Gulgee paint that lingers longest: “He was an action painter. He would run to the canvas and hit it with a broad brush… He would jump around, breathing heavily. It was quite the theatre for me.”

Years later, Amin remembers witnessing the same spectacle, only from the perspective of a son. Growing up, he writes, meant living with “the intense smell of turpentine and oil paints.” His father would indulgently prepare a canvas for him before becoming utterly absorbed in his own work. “I would witness his trance-like state as he danced in front of his surface.”

The book also reminds readers that genius is rarely a solitary enterprise. One of its most affecting essays belongs to the South Asian art historian Savita Apte, who restores Gulgee’s wife Zarine (Zaro) Gulgee to the story. While Gulgee immersed himself in the act of creation, she writes, it was Zaro who promoted his work, cultivated collectors, networked buyers and pursued payments whenever necessary. The artist’s extraordinary career rested upon an equally extraordinary partnership.

Elsewhere, the solemnity surrounding great artists is dismantled. The writer Nazeen Sheikh remembers Gulgee not only as an innovator but as “a madcap brimming with frolic and a great dance partner.” It is a wonderfully human detail.

Artist and art critic Quddus Mirza offers one of the book’s most persuasive reassessments, arguing that Gulgee approached abstraction “not with a Western eye, but through a mind that deciphered its context, impact and multiplicity in the art of Islam.” Mirza also credits Gulgee with freeing modern Pakistani art from the perception that it belonged only to elite audiences. His paintings, he argues, spoke to ordinary Pakistanis as much as to collectors and critics.

Equally illuminating is the writer Bina Shah’s essay on Gulgee’s portraiture. She traces how Ayub Khan understood portraiture as an instrument of cultural diplomacy, commissioning Gulgee to paint monarchs and presidents from across the world. Gulgee insisted on painting or sketching every portrait from life rather than photographs (the only exception being his portraits of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal). The studies of figures, including the Shah of Iran, Richard Nixon, Rajiv Gandhi, George H.W. Bush and Ayub Khan, reveal both vulnerability and power, transforming official likenesses into remarkably human studies.

Other contributors illuminate the extraordinary range of his artistic practice. We encounter the figurative paintings and sketches of the 1950s and 1960s, the striking yet unfinished portrait of Begum Salimah Aga Khan, the dazzling pietra dura works fashioned from onyx and lapis lazuli, the monumental calligraphic abstractions, before arriving at the haunting Void paintings and the Nuqta series. Rather than presenting these as disconnected phases, the handbook reveals an artist in perpetual motion, forever searching for another visual language.

Nageen Shaikh’s discussion of Gulgee’s fascination with stone is especially memorable. She recounts how he developed his interest in using this material while travelling across Afghanistan during the late-1950s, after being invited there by King Mohammad Zahir Shah to paint portraits of Shah and his family.

Gulgee himself explained the attraction with characteristic simplicity: “Stone has been lying in the bowels of the earth for millions and millions of years and it will not disintegrate or fade. That is why I use stone. It is almost everlasting.” The remark feels less like a comment on materials than on legacy itself.

The images throughout the volume are as eloquent as the essays. Full-page reproductions capture the physical richness of the paintings, while archival photographs construct another biography. We see Gulgee with heads of state and collectors, but we also encounter more intimate moments that remind us this was a life lived beyond museums and galleries.

By the final page of this publication, Gulgee’s paintings had undeniably acquired a new meaning for me because the man who made them had finally stepped out from behind them. In doing so, the handbook reveals a truth that every great artist’s archive ultimately seeks to uncover: that life can be every bit as fascinating as art.

Originally published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 12th, 2026

In a collaborative effort with the charitable organisation War Child UK, Tucci posted a video saying war was “tearing little lives apart”.

“Drones aren’t lullabies. Rubble isn’t a playground. War is not a childhood,” the actor said, adding that children were “paying with their lives for wars they didn’t start”.

Tucci said the horrors of armed conflict were the “reality for millions of children around the world, from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan”.

He urged followers to support War Child’s mission to “reach vulnerable children in some of the most dangerous places in the world with life-saving supplies and mental health first aid”.

The Devil Wears Prada star has worked with the charity since 2022 as part of an impressive record of philanthropy, especially when it comes to causes focusing on children. He has been working with UNHCR for refugee rights since 2017.

An earlier project he did with War Child in 2023 raised £60,000 for children in war-torn areas by selling specially designed t-shirts.

The organisation has been involved in a number of high-profile celebrity fundraising initiatives, especially with musicians under its in-house record label War Child Records.

Their recent charity album, HELP(2), had acts including Arooj Aftab and Olivia Rodrigo come together for their cause. It released via their store and on streaming platforms in March.

The album had 23 tracks and a special bonus recording donated by Oasis of their performance of ‘Acquiesce’ from last year. The album’s first track, ‘Opening Night’, was the first track from the Arctic Monkeys after an almost four-year hiatus following their 2022 release The Car.

Answering questions at an event organised to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his anti-colonial film Lagaan on Thursday, the actor said the idea that his character, Phunsukh Wangdu, and Wangchuk being connected was a “misconception”.

The question came after his 3 Idiots co-star Omi Vaidya — who played Chatur Ramalingam — posted a video on Instagram voicing support for Wangchuk. The reel’s caption read, “Did you know the real life Phunsukh Wangdu may die?”

“I saw a video of Chatur just recently. He said that, yes. No, he’s wrong,” Khan said.

He said Vaidya might have been under a false impression. “Maybe that’s what Chatur was thinking, but I want to tell you that neither Raju [the film’s director] nor Abhijat [the writer], nor I, we didn’t know about Mr Sonam.”

Wangchuk has, on previous occasions, also denied working with the team that made 3 Idiots, as per the Times of India. He did, however, say that people had told him there were similarities between him and Khan’s character.

Indian media reports the activist recounting a meeting with Khan in Mumbai in 2008. He said he had proposed a film highlighting the massive financial cost of the conflict between India and Pakistan over the Siachen Glacier. He had hoped such a movie would convince people on both sides of the border that the money would be better used elsewhere, such as on education.

In 2025, Wangchuk — who is also an engineer and a climate change campaigner — visited Islamabad to speak at Dawn’s Breathe Pakistan conference about environmental protection and his project in Ladakh. By then, the project had established 52 running artificial glaciers in Ladakh and 14 elsewhere in the world over six years.

At the event on Thursday, Khan appreciated the educationist’s efforts, and expressed concern over his hunger strike, which the actor hoped would end soon.

Wangchuk has been protesting with the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in New Delhi, demanding the resignation of India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Prasad. The protest follows a massive scandal which saw papers of the country’s competitive university entrance exams leaked.

“Sonam sir is not doing so well, and his ribcage has started showing,” CJP Spokesperson Vijay Dahiya said in a recent update on the activist’s health.

“He’s nearly 60, has lost muscle mass; the heat and humidity are not helping either and I can see him having dizzy spells,” he added.

Several Bollywood celebrities have expressed support for Wangchuk’s mission, including actor Sonakshi Sinha, who said she salutes the activist for taking a stand for the country’s children. She lamented that the government was not even talking to the CJP, let alone fixing flaws in the system.

Veteran actors Zeenat Aman and Shabana Azmi also spoke out, with Azmi imploring Wangchuk to end his hunger strike and take care of himself. Aman called on the government to open dialogue with the CJP on the issue and work for the next generation.

Actor Naseeruddin Shah and author Arundhati Roy also urged Wangchuk to break his long-running “fast”, while actor Prakash Raj visited the protest site to express his solidarity with Wangchuk and the other protesters.

She appeared on an episode of the show Good Morning Pakistan on Tuesday where host Nida Yasir discussed how to protect children from sexual harassment and predatory behaviour.

When asked by Yasir how she had trained her own daughters to defend themselves against harassment, Ahmad said, “I am a gung-ho mother, Nida. I am shameless. I think there should be no shame in discussing these things, between mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, and even between spouses. These things should be discussed and [children] should be told.”

She said that despite social stigma, she felt things like the menstrual cycle should be discussed because society had made it into a taboo and people lacked awareness. At this point, human rights lawyer Zia Awan said it was so bad that adult women didn’t understand their own bodies.

Ahmad explained she had used science to talk to her kids about puberty and the human body. “Both my daughters, when they were around seven years old, between five to seven, I got them anatomical diagrams. I explained human anatomy, both of men and women.”

She said that’s the age children are naturally inquisitive and satisfying their curiosity was the right way to go.

“I preemptively told them… this is how your body will develop, it will change like this at this age. I never taught them to be ashamed, I showed them how beautiful the human body is and what systems it has.”

Model and psychotherapist Atia Fareed agreed therapy was important for everyone in that it can help them regulate emotions, but especially children who had gone through the trauma of sexual harassment at a young age.

Earlier in the programme, the guests were joined by two young girls, both of whom had been harassed as pre-teens.

One of the girls, who was abused by an instructor at a tuition centre, had told Yasir she no longer felt safe being instructed by a male teacher years after the incident.

The other girl, whose abuser was her uncle, warned viewers to be watchful of all men, even if they are family members.

The crowning ceremony took place at Lahore’s Faletti’s Hotel, where Meraj was crowned by Dr Shafaq Akhtar, Miss Pakistan Universal 2022, and Attaullah Gujjar, Mr Pakistan World.  

Miss World made the announcement on its website and Instagram account on Thursday, saying Meraj would represent Pakistan at the 75th Anniversary Edition of the Miss World Festival in Vietnam from August 9 to September 5.

The 24-year-old old business and economics graduate is currently pursuing a master’s degree in auditing and accounting.

“My future ambitions is to achieve my dream of becoming a State-Authorised Public Accountant. And actively advocating for children’s rights and girls’ education to help build a brighter future for Pakistan,” she said, according to Miss World.

She has previously represented Pakistan at the Miss Earth, Miss Global, Miss Cosmo, Miss Eco International, and Miss Aura International competitions and has also won four titles at the Freedom of the World competition in Kosovo.

This may be the first time Pakistan is participating in the Miss World contest, but it isn’t the country’s first foray into pageants. In recent years, Pakistan’s participation in the Miss Universe pageant has been celebrated with Erica Robin and Roma Riaz both representing the country and winning hearts.

At its heart, Dr Bahu anatomises a controlling patriarch — a figure so common in our storytelling that we risk normalising him. But writer Sanam Mehdi refuses that comfort.

Dr Bahu is a masterclass in patriarchal trauma and the slow architecture of rebellion

She gives us Dr Shahnawaz (Shahzad Nawaz), a successful oncologist and owner of two private hospitals, who maintains family dominance not through overt violence, but through systemic socialisation, entitlement and the weaponisation of fear.

He is the sun around which characters orbit — and he ensures they never forget their place.

Coercive control as identity

Socialised entitlement is his primary tool. Patriarchal conditioning has taught him that his worth lies in dominance, emotional restraint and control. He views any questioning of his authority as a direct threat to his identity and hierarchy.

His behaviour is not random anger. It is a calculated system of dominance. In one searing scene, he taps his spoon against his plate, reminding the women they should know what he wants without being told. A reminder of where they belong: the kitchen.

Behind this aggressive exterior lies a fragile ego. In clinical terms, coercive control acts as a self-protective barrier against the terror of chaos, loss of status or emotional inadequacy. His perfectionist stance reflects a deeper inadequacy — a childhood wound he has spent a lifetime covering with authority and wealth.

He employs a cult of personality: divide and conquer, information hoarding, infantilisation and enslavement of his relatives. He chooses both daughters-in-law from modest backgrounds, extends favours to their families — matchmaking, waiving medical bills — and, in exchange, he gets social credit and control with impunity. He puppeteers the elder bahu’s (Hajra Yamin) career, disregarding her wishes and qualifications.

Roles in a rigid hierarchy

A controlling patriarch creates a highly rigid, anxious family system based on conditional love and performance. It is highly functional — but devoid of happiness.

1. The Subservient Partner: Dr Farheen (Saba Hameed) is a qualified doctor, but her husband has dictated her life, dividing it between household and a “suitable” professional choice: aesthetician. She absorbs his anger to protect her children and enforces his rules for personal safety. Her cancer is kept discreet because it could cause doubts in the patriarch’s professional authority. She is the buffer, the peacekeeper, until Dr Sania (Kubra Khan) — the new bahu — arrives and asks the question that threatens the entire system: “What about a woman’s individual identity?”

2. The Golden Child: Dr Faizan (Adeel Hussain) is the trophy son, a star oncologist and the sole professional heir. He enjoys praise and privilege, but only at the cost of conformity. When his wife is discovered to be infertile and adoption is denied by the patriarch, Faizan’s complex trauma deepens, pushing him toward an extramarital affair with Dr Amber (Mira Sethi). His cheating cannot be pardoned, but the suffocation of never having a choice in three decades deserves sympathy.

3. The Scapegoat: Salman (Shuja Asad) refuses to pretend the system is healthy. He is targeted, isolated and labelled “difficult”. Judged for choosing a passion-based career, his father still finds him a doctor wife, Sania, to compensate for his shortcomings. His marriage becomes a source of healing. The most striking wisdom comes from him when Sania suggests planning a family out of insecurity — he prefers to build a life based on trust and companionship rather than chain it with a baby out of insecurity… that’s trauma prevention.

The rebellion

Dr Sania faces the tension between her medical career and a patriarch who tries to curate her life: when to honeymoon or skip exams, where to do her residency and how to behave.

His subtle demeaning statements — such as “I trust your family’s upbringing” and “You are now part of a wealthy family” — are textbook gaslighting. When she insists on doing her residency with Dr Rubina (Atiqa Odho), he threatens to get her license cancelled. When she bypasses his approval in a welfare case, she is punished but endures the pressure despite the harsh impact on her life.

Rebellion is rarely sudden; it forms through cognitive dissonance, underground resistance and eventual systemic rupture. Every time Dr Sania asserts herself, something shifts. Salman supports her aggressively. Farheen and Mina hear their inner voices — experience hope, even if they do not actively support her. That is the architecture of change.

The patriarch’s own trauma

In a devastating twist, Dr Farheen overhears a conversation between her husband and Dr Rubina — uncovering a painful truth from the past. She confronts him with the quiet yearning of a woman who seeks the truth. She receives only silence.

That night she dies of a broken heart, of decades of erasure, of the slow poison of being diminished every single day by the man who was supposed to cherish her. Her final sleep is both a tragedy and a release from a prison. This revelation reframes everything. The persecutor is himself a hidden victim — rejected, insecure and driven by an ego that could not tolerate a woman’s ambition.

He pits family members against one another, rationing affection so they compete for his approval instead of uniting against him. It works — until it doesn’t.

The mental health takeaway: Lessons for everyone

Dr Bahu offers implicit guidance for viewers trapped in similar dynamics:

1. For the oppressed: Set strict boundaries. Prevent now, not cure later. Use assertive communication and avoid emotional escalation. Seek support from psychological resources such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) to cope with guilt and anxiety.

2. For the enablers: Recognise that silence is complicity. The victims are also participants in the system. Healing requires breaking the cycle, not maintaining it.

3. For the coercive controller: Healing is possible for persecutors, but only when they stop running from their wounds and confront their trauma.

Dr Bahu is not a show about villains and victims. It is about a family, engineered to serve one man’s ego, who slowly, painfully, learns to dismantle it from within.

Mehreen Jabbar’s direction with surgical precision ensures no scene is wasted. The performances are tours de force — especially Saba Hameed’s silent suffering and Shuja Asad’s simmering defiance. Kubra Khan brings a quiet steel to Dr Sania that makes her rebellion believable rather than preachy.

The drama asks the question we must all answer: what do we owe to tradition, and what do we owe to ourselves? The answer is a choice.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, July 12th, 2026

Kinza Hashmi got a taste of that this week when parliamentarians Jamal Khan Raisani and Romina Khurshid Alam commended her onscreen performance as political scion Rubab in Leader.

Raisani reposted a post from Hashmi’s Instagram on Thursday with a message saying he was “proud to see [her] portray the strength, courage and leadership of women in politics so powerfully in Leader”.

He said, “Women do not just belong in parliament, they belong at the forefront of leadership”.

Hashmi thanked Raisani for his kind words and reshared his story on her account.

Alam, who serves as the coordinator to the prime minister on climate change, also reshared the actor’s post, calling her performance “iconic”.

“This isn’t acting. This is ownership,” said the three-time MNA. She said Hashmi “stepped into the shoes of leadership and made the whole room listen”.

Alam praised the actor’s “skill, her fire [and] her character”, calling the performance “absolutely phenomenal”.

“More power to you,” the MNA said.

Hashmi’s onscreen persona in Leader, Rubab, is the daughter of a shrewd politician with a feudal background. In later episodes, she takes the reins of her father’s political empire, coming into her own as an iron-willed party leader.

Through Fanoos in 2017 and Coke Studio Explorer (CSE) in 2018, he built a reputation for uncovering Pakistan’s forgotten sounds, traditions and cultures — stories that often existed far from the country’s urban centres. His latest project, The Great Pakistan Adventure (TGPA), marks a departure from music, but not from the curiosity that has always driven his work.

Pakistan’s digital creators have spent years reshaping the country’s image for online audiences, taking viewers beyond postcard landscapes to discover the people, traditions and untold stories that lie beyond the tourist trail. TGPA builds on that momentum with an ambitious four-part web series that can be viewed on YouTube and blends cinematic documentary filmmaking with expedition travel.

It follows four of the country’s best-known storytellers as they explore dramatically different corners of Pakistan.

From forgotten folk traditions to the songs of remote mountain communities, Zohaib Kazi has spent his career documenting Pakistan’s sound landscape. With The Great Pakistan Adventure, he takes that mission beyond music, revealing lesser-known people and places that shape the country’s identity

Rather than relying on a single host, each episode is led by a content creator whose interests naturally align with the journey: motorcycle traveller Abrar Hassan heads into the mountains of the Hushe Valley in search of the elusive snow leopard and the communities working to protect it; journalist and storyteller Maryam Raja travels through Sindh to uncover its living heritage, wildlife and enduring traditions; travel filmmaker Bilal Hassan — better known as Mystapaki — ventures across the deserts of Cholistan and Bahawalpur; and adventurer Nadir Nahdi traces Pakistan’s little-known surf culture and coastal communities from Karachi to Balochistan.

Directed by Zohaib, the series moves beyond conventional travel programming, using each expedition to examine the relationship between landscapes, identities and the people whose lives are deeply connected to these places. The result is less of a showcase of destinations and more of a portrait of Pakistan told through four distinct voices, each revealing a different facet of a country that continues to surprise even those who know it well.

While the BYD Shark 6 serves as the vehicle connecting these journeys, it never overshadows the stories, acting instead as a means to reach some of the country’s most remote and compelling landscapes.

“The intent was to shed light on a lot of human stories,” points out Zohaib. “It’s about exploring our identities as Pakistanis.”

The project occupied nearly eight months of his life. Concept development began in September last year, and post-production wrapped in late April. Timing every shoot around the right season meant long stretches of waiting — and even longer periods were spent filming in some of the country’s most unforgiving environments.

“We were trying to catch things in the right season,” he explains. “It was a long journey.”

For Zohaib, the challenge wasn’t simply logistical. It was creative. “We have the world of vlogs and then we have documentaries,” he says. “We’ve been trying to bridge the gap between them.”

This meant convincing both the client and the production ecosystems to embrace something that sat between a cinematic documentary and accessible digital storytelling. “There was resistance at first,” he recalls. “But they were very receptive.”

Zohaib’s reputation for culturally nuanced storytelling was precisely why he was approached for the series. Yet, despite its adventure-driven premise, Zohaib instinctively steered the project back towards people.

“I love cultural storytelling,” he says. “Your curiosity gets interactions. Things aren’t how you understand them. You get a real reality check.”

A career built on cultural curiosity

Curiosity and cultural storytelling have always been Zohaib’s forte. He first joined Coke Studio (CS) in 2009 as a music producer and composer, where he worked alongside some of the country’s most celebrated musicians.

His work became known for blending traditional Pakistani musical forms with contemporary production, helping introduce regional folk sounds to mainstream audiences. Rather than simply arranging songs, Zohaib sought to preserve the authenticity of indigenous musical traditions while presenting them in a modern format that resonated with younger listeners.

Following the success of CS, Zohaib conceived and directed CSE, an ambitious documentary series that required travelling across Pakistan in search of undiscovered musical talent and endangered folk traditions. The project took him to some of the country’s most remote villages, where he documented local musicians performing in their native languages and cultural settings, before bringing them into the studio for original collaborations.

More than a talent hunt, CSE became a celebration of Pakistan’s extraordinary musical diversity, introducing audiences to voices and traditions that had rarely, if ever, reached national television. One of the most memorable songs to come from CSE was ‘Pareek’, by Ariana and Amreena, two Kalasha girls from Chitral.

Fanoos marked a natural evolution of Zohaib’s work beyond music into broader cultural storytelling. The documentary series explored Pakistan’s living heritage through artisans, crafts people, oral traditions, architecture and communities whose knowledge has been passed down through generations.

Rather than focusing solely on history, Fanoos examined how culture continues to evolve, highlighting the relationship between people, places and identities. Visually cinematic and deeply immersive, the series reinforced Zohaib’s reputation for telling nuanced stories that celebrated Pakistan’s often-overlooked cultural landscapes.

Together, these projects have established Zohaib as one of Pakistan’s leading cultural storytellers. While CS introduced audiences to the country’s musical richness, CSE took viewers to the communities where those traditions originated and Fanoos expanded that vision to encompass Pakistan’s broader cultural heritage.

TGPA builds on that same philosophy, replacing music with travel and adventure, while retaining Zohaib’s enduring focus on people, identity and place.

Waiting for winter

Nowhere is that philosophy clearer than in the series’ opening episode, filmed in the Hushe Valley. Conventional wisdom suggested shooting in May, when the roads would be open and conditions more forgiving. Zohaib chose the opposite.

“If we wanted to experience what Hushe is really about, we needed to go when it is at its remotest,” he says.

They arrived after dark. Overnight, snow buried the valley. “It was the harshest of conditions,” he laughs. “Especially for someone from Karachi who isn’t a climber.”

Yet, those hardships delivered exactly what he had hoped for: a version of Hushe that few visitors witness.

The episode also brought together three of Pakistan’s most iconic mountain communities through the people who best represent them: Sajid Sadpara from Sadpara, Sultana Nasab from Shimshal and the people of Hushe itself.

When I point out that he had managed to include all three communities that have produced generations of Pakistan’s high-altitude porters and mountaineers, Zohaib smiles. “Thank you for noticing that,” he says. “The intention was to inspire people to experience snow tourism. Ice climbing is a sport that’s huge in so many countries but it’s something we can develop here too.”

For him, featuring mountaineers such as Sajid wasn’t simply about celebrity. “These kinds of shows reach the mainstream,” he says. “These are the people who should be on billboards. They’re the ones doing the real work.”

Meeting Sajid himself proved memorable. “[He’s] someone who’s climbed 14 8,000-metre peaks without oxygen… I shook hands with him and thought he should be doing mixed martial arts,” he jokes.

However, more than the filming, Zohaib remembers the conversations. “I wish I’d recorded a podcast there. The conversations were so inspiring. They stayed with me.”

Refusing to tell stories through pity

Another episode that has resonated with audiences follows Karachi-based surfer Nadir Nahdi as he learns to surf with the young men of Buleji, whose passion for the ocean has quietly built one of Pakistan’s most remarkable grassroots surfing communities.

Zohaib was already familiar with their story. His wife, photographer Insiya Syed, had previously documented them for Reuters. But revisiting the subject required a different perspective.

“We were very careful not to paint anyone as a victim.” After a pause, he adds, “We didn’t want to make poverty porn.” Instead, the narrative focuses on skill rather than circumstances.

“If the boys from Buleji can teach Nadir how to surf, then that proves they can teach. We wanted to show that rather than saying it.”

Watching Nadir finally stand on his surfboard became one of Zohaib’s favourite moments of the entire production. “When it finally happened, we knew we had our story.”

Just as importantly, he hopes viewers come away seeing Karachi differently. “There are places to surf here. There are places to cliff dive. This can be a proper tourism destination.”

The song he’d been searching for

Perhaps the most extraordinary moment during production almost never made it into the series.

For over a decade, Zohaib had been searching for a traditional climbing song. He was told it was sung in villages near K2. Apart from a grainy camcorder recording from the ’90s, he had never managed to find it. Then, hours before leaving Hushe, something unexpected happened.

“We came back from ice climbing and everyone in the guesthouse started singing it,” he recalls. The villagers had chosen the song to welcome the crew home.

“I recorded it two or three hours before we left,” he says. “I’d been looking for it for 12 or 14 years.” It was, he admits, a deeply personal moment — one that perfectly captures the obsession that has defined much of his career.

What does Pakistan sound like?

That obsession extends beyond filmmaking. For the past three-and-a-half years, Zohaib has quietly been building what may be Pakistan’s most ambitious sound archive — a collection of around 5,000 recordings gathered from across the country.

The project grew out of a simple frustration. “If you search for Pakistani sounds on global libraries, you either don’t find them or you get poor-quality recordings.”

That absence has consequences. “When international productions depict Pakistan, they often end up using sounds from somewhere else — Cairo, for example — because that’s all they have.”

For Zohaib, the archive is about more than preserving audio. It is about preserving identity. “Ten years from now, when my son asks AI what Pakistan sounds like, I don’t want the answer to be generic ‘South Asian’ sounds.”

The archive even allows listeners to navigate Karachi through sound, clicking on locations across the city to hear recordings captured there. “We’re trying to trap time,” he says. “Before these places change.”

It is, in many ways, the same philosophy that underpins TGPA. Behind every landscape lies a story worth preserving. Behind every spectacular shot is a conversation, a tradition or a sound that risks disappearing if no one takes the time to record it.

For Zohaib Kazi, adventure has never really been about reaching remote places. It is about paying close enough attention to discover what has been there all along.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, July 12th, 2026

In a video posted to his Instagram account on Wednesday, he said Pakistan’s entertainment industry had neither the widely-relatable narratives, nor the technical expertise to meet the standards of global streaming giants.

Abbasi started off by addressing a statement by Salman Iqbal, the CEO of ARY Digital, who said his channel was approached by Netflix for streaming rights. The executive said he had rejected the offers in favour of building a Pakistani streaming platform.

The filmmaker said he found the whole thing “impractical”, particularly if the idea was for ARY to have its own platform — the channel operates a free-of-charge streaming service called ARY Plus.

Abbasi said any attempt at a Pakistani streaming service needed support — and more importantly, content — from multiple different channels.

Then he addressed notions that “Netflix’s regional headquarters are in India and they made the decision not to platform Pakistani content”. The filmmaker acknowledged that such ideas were brought to the forefront by senior industry voices such as Mehreen Jabbar and Faysal Quraishi, but said they were only part of the story.

“Have we achieved the standards where we can give our content to Netflix?” the filmmaker asked.

Abbasi explained that he was doing a film in 2017 and wanted to work with Netflix; he had received some technical requirements from aggregators that would allow his work to meet Netflix’s standards.

He said many of the things were still missing in Pakistan’s industry. “You don’t know HDR workflows, you don’t know about colour science, you don’t know about sound mixing.”

The filmmaker said it was true that Pakistani content was popular, but from a technical point of view, it was not up to the mark.

“There’s a channel, I won’t take its name, Netflix has commissioned them to make a drama for the last four years — I think it will be four years soon — it has a big cast too. But if you’ll notice, there hasn’t been so much as a trailer for this drama and that’s because Netflix has spent the time bringing it up to their standards.”

Getting to the second problem, Abbasi said the plots of Pakistani dramas were stuck “in a box”. He said Pakistan’s entertainment industry almost exclusively made family dramas whereas Netflix had shows on “traditional issues, political conflicts and other big things”.

He said Pakistan’s content was popular with Pakistani audiences because they could relate to the narratives; this would be less applicable if the same shows were marketed to foreign audiences. “You need global stories,” the filmmaker said.

Abbasi lamented the lack of good literature output from the country, which created a shortage of stories to use for television. “One of our biggest issues is that we don’t have many famous, best-selling novels,” he said.

“See, Netflix buys stories, not actors. Our actors are great, our scriptwriters — at least for Pakistan — are great. But when international standards are involved… then you need your stories to be global and unfortunately we lack in that part because we don’t dare to think up bigger stories and present them to a worldwide audience.”

The filmmaker said a mindset had taken hold in the industry — pushed by channels — that a drama was only as good as the superstars cast in it and this led to stories losing priority.

Pakistani audiences, he said, would not be as keen to pay to watch content from their own country because they are already used to watching it for free on YouTube, which presented yet another problem for putting it on Netflix.

Abbasi said it was unfortunate that channel owners in Pakistan had not sought to work with platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max to train their crew and improve their content.

Especially for the ARY Digital CEO, he said, “Your statement [that you refused to work with Netflix] is a bit confusing. I am not proud of it, it’s actually sad. Maybe you should have said that we’ll work to reach international standards.”

Earlier, an announcement was made by the federal minister for planning and development, Ahsan Iqbal, that the government was in talks to get Pakistani content on Netflix while simultaneously working on an indigenous streaming platform. Abbasi said this was good news, but only if the industry raises its standards in the process.

On Monday, actor Usama Khan shared his views, which aligned with the filmmaker on Pakistan’s lack of good stories. He said the world didn’t revolve around family-centric content the way Pakistan’s media ecosystem did and that international streaming networks will want something more — “gripping true-crime, political thrillers and deep dives into the complexities of our institutional systems”.

The guidelines follow feedback from athletes who said certain camera shots can cause discomfort and distractions by drawing attention away ​from their performances.

“The development of filming guidelines is a ​crucial step toward eliminating harmful portrayals of women ⁠in our sports while maintaining the highest level of ​storytelling and technical excellence,” European Athletics President Dobromir Karamarinov ​said.

Broadcasters are advised to avoid prolonged close-up shots of specific body parts, low-angle views filmed from behind or beneath athletes, and slow-motion ​replays that do not contribute to the understanding of ​the sporting action.

The guidelines aim to ensure coverage remains focused on athletic ‌performance ⁠and reduce the risk of footage being taken out of context and shared inappropriately online.

The organisations also encouraged production teams to use wider camera angles that capture the ​full scope of ​an athlete’s ⁠movement and performance.

Former world long jump champion Ivana Spanovic said broadcasters should use innovative ​camera angles, including aerial views, and educational ​graphics to ⁠help explain various aspects of athletic performances.

“Our sport offers numerous opportunities to showcase technique and the beauty of movement, ⁠like ​displaying slow-motion shots that highlight technical ​precision, such as the take-off moment or the perfect stride,” the Serbian ​added.

Among those gathered were many of the people responsible for making the pavilion a reality, alongside well-wishers, such as myself. Sitting amongst this company, I thought about the pressure of representing a country through art, but also about the extraordinary effort it must have taken to get here.

The exhibition itself, ‘Punj•AB — A Sublime Terrain’, featured the work of artist Faiza Butt, curated by Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano. Pakistan’s participation at the historic biennale was greenlit by Islamabad a mere six months before the opening at Venice, which made this milestone even more impressive.

In 2021, I was part of the team curating Pakistan’s Pavilion at the World Expo in Dubai, and that experience has since profoundly influenced how I see public exhibitions, their role in society and the huge personal effort it takes from each person involved in making these public-private partnerships happen.

Pakistan has made its second-ever official appearance at the Venice Biennale with a pavilion featuring the work of artist Faiza Butt. The story behind how the Pakistan Pavilion came to be is as compelling as the art itself

This is Pakistan’s second participation at Venice, following the inaugural pavilion in 2019, which featured Naiza Khan’s work and was curated by Zahra Khan. In Pakistan, building a national pavilion remains a labour of love. Unlike countries with permanent structures for such diplomacy, each participation requires assembling an entirely new coalition of artists, curators, commissioners, government officials, diplomats, funders and patrons who believe in the transformative power of such an endeavour.

Hence, I hope this write-up also serves as a small record of what it takes to pull off something like this.

How it happened

Butt, who initiated the idea that culminated in Pakistan’s return to Venice, approached the project with an urgency. A graduate of the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, her work is part of several notable collections in the United Kingdom (UK), where she met curator Feliciano. Their partnership is one of the strengths of the pavilion.

Weeks after Venice, I spoke to both over Zoom. What struck me was the ease with which they completed each other’s thoughts. Feliciano described the exhibition as a continuous process of “editing intensity”, while Butt spoke of resisting any attempt to smooth Punjab’s histories into a single narrative. Between them was a shared discipline that the pavilion would hold multiplicity as its approach.

Despite individual conviction, participation for all countries at La Biennale di Venezia has always been through the cultural ministries of countries and is a form of track-two diplomacy — a point we often seem to gloss over, in favour of in-vogue themes of criticality and independence in contemporary art.

Also integral to contemporary art is both community and patronage.

Speaking to both Bangash and Jugnu Mohsin, I came to appreciate the coalition that made this pavilion possible. Mohsin helped build support in Pakistan, after which the federal government formally backed the project in October 2025. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved Pakistan’s participation on the condition that funding be assembled through a public-private partnership.

Bangash was subsequently appointed Commissioner. A historian of Modern South Asia with a focus on decolonisation, modern state formation and identity-based conflicts, Bangash is also the founder of ThinkFest. His key role, as I observed, was holding together institutions and expectations that would otherwise drift apart.

I also particularly appreciated his effort of bringing together most Pakistanis who were in Venice at the time and using his position to celebrate them all, including noting how meaningful it was to have curators from both the upcoming Karachi Biennale 2027 (KB27) and Lahore Biennale (LB04) present together in Venice celebrating a rare moment of convergence within Pakistan’s cultural landscape. I was grateful to have met Nav Haq (curator of LB04) and to wish him the very best from myself and everyone at KB27.

That gathering also prompted a larger question. National pavilions inevitably claim, in some way, to represent entire countries. Yet ‘Punj•AB — A Sublime Terrain’ is framed as unapologetically centralist, despite its themes and impact being wider. Rather than seeing this as a contradiction, perhaps it should be seen as an invitation. As Pakistan develops a longer presence at Venice, future pavilions have the opportunity to explore the country’s linguistic, regional and cultural diversity through equally compelling lenses.

The art

At the centre of ‘Punj•AB — A Sublime Terrain’ is Faiza Butt’s reimagining of Punjab not as a static province but as a layered historical terrain shaped by the movement of rivers, crops, empires and memory.

Her visual language, rooted in miniature painting but expanded into contemporary textile practice, layers Buddhist, Sikh, Mughal, colonial and contemporary imagery into dense compositions.

The large-scale tapestries and embroideries, installed in the site of a converted pharmacy, were produced with collaborators. Chief amongst these is Havelicrafts, a not-for-profit founded by Jugnu Mohsin in her village of Shergarh, in District Okara. Many of the artisans involved had never worked at this scale before, and the collaboration brought cotton, its production and the politics of Pakistan’s agrarian economy into focus.

Speaking to Mohsin, I realised that Havelicrafts is only one part of a much larger story. For years, she has argued that the disappearance of traditional crafts is inseparable from rural unemployment and ecological change. Her efforts to revive gossypium arboreum, the ancient Indus Valley cotton that has largely disappeared from cultivation, are part of a wider attempt to reconnect agriculture, craftsmanship and rural livelihoods.

Venice brings that conversation on to an international stage and becomes a way of thinking about labour, ecology and memory. As Feliciano explained, one of the curatorial challenges was transforming forms of labour often confined to the domestic sphere into works capable of occupying institutional space with authority.

In doing so, the pavilion asks us to reconsider where contemporary art begins and where craft ends.

Continuing such initiatives

Standing in Venice, I kept returning to Dubai. To the memory of how many moving parts had to align for a pavilion to exist at all, and how quickly those alignments dissolve once the event is over.

Pakistan has now participated in Venice twice. The real challenge is no longer whether we can produce a pavilion worthy of the international stage. It is whether we can build the institutional continuity that ensures that the next attempt does not have to begin from zero.

‘Punj•AB — A Sublime Terrain’ is on display at the Venice Biennale 2026 in Venice, Italy from May 9-November 22, 2026

Originally published in Dawn, EOS, July 12th, 2026

Since late May, protests have been held against the planned construction of a luxury hotel linked to Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner in a nature reserve on the country’s coast.

Lipa, speaking on her Service95 Book Club podcast with Albanian author Lea Ypi, said she shared the protesters’ concerns about the government’s transparency in approving the development.

“What I actually find concerning is the principle that the government could just change the law to remove the environmental protection without any kind of public consultation,” said the 30-year-old, who has Kosovan-Albanian parents.

“I find it so inspiring to see how much people really care,” referring to the daily demonstrations.

The singer also said it was clear that the problem was structural and there was a need to rebuild “in a way that supports the people”.

The planned resort was first unveiled in 2024, but the latest wave of protests began after barbed-wire fencing and bulldozers appeared on beaches in late May.

Opposition to the project has become a flashpoint for frustrations over perceived corruption, with demands now including the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

The musician’s comments were welcomed by local environmental activist Besjana Gurri, who told AFP it was a “powerful message” to the Albanian government.

“I am confident that her voice will help bring greater international attention to this fight and amplify the concerns of the people protesting in Tirana.”

We couldn’t believe it either when we first heard it. Haaland admitted to it in a conversation with Norwegian press, but we kind of thought it was a big joke, after all, who doesn’t know Spider-Man?

So, you can imagine how surprised we were to get a confirmation straight from the horse’s — or should we say Holland’s — mouth. The actor was on The Tonight Show when host Jimmy Fallon asked if the rumours were true.

The actor said they were and added, “I’ll tell you what, that is exactly the type of humbling experience that is important for actors.”

He said he had tried to say hi and ask Haaland out to dinner, but he got left on read. “Not an excuse. Not ‘I’m busy tonight’ [or] ‘I’m playing football.’ Nada. Nothing.”

The actor explained he was in Monaco, watching the grand prix when this happened and the footballer was in the hospitality suite across from his.

When Fallon asked him if the dinner was still on the table, Holland laughed and said Haaland might not be so keen on the invite after the actor’s home team, England, beat Haaland and his men to secure a spot in the World Cup semi-finals.

Both Fallon and Holland agreed the footballer was legendary on the field.

Later in the programme, the actor talked about his experience working with Christopher Nolan on his upcoming film The Odyssey. He said his agents had pitched him either a vampire movie or a science fiction film, neither of which turned out to be true when he flew to Los Angeles to meet Nolan; he accepted the role on the spot.

Holland revealed there was a major scheduling conflict between The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day — where he plays the titular character — as both projects were starting on the same day.

The actor said the team working on Spider-Man understood the gravity of the situation and moved the project.

The Odyssey hits theatres on Friday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day will begin its theatrical run on July 31.

The PFF has partnered with music platform Humnava to release ‘Sway’, a tribute to the beautiful game that brings together international artists and the contrasting worlds of Hunza and Lyari. It released on YouTube on July 7

A press release from the federation said the objective was to highlight the country’s “rising football culture a soundtrack – by bringing the wider football community into one national conversation”.

It said both Pakistan’s men’s and women’s teams had made remarkable strides in the game this year, with the boys bagging their first international trophy ever at the Diamond Jubilee International Football Tournament last month and the girls scoring their biggest ever win — an 8-0 thrashing of the Turks and Caicos Islands — in April.

The release quoted PFF President Mohsen Gilani as saying, “Pakistan’s football story belongs to every player, coach, supporter and community that has kept the game alive across the country. Our men’s and women’s teams are creating moments that are giving supporters new reasons to believe.”

Humnava’s Creative Director Zulfiqar Khan — known better as Xulfi — said Pakistanis watch every World Cup with a dream. They see the upsets, the winning goals, the underdogs making their place among giants and want to see their own teams do the same someday.

He said music wasn’t very different, especially when it comes to Karachi’s Lyari — where the song is partly shot. “It has watched its own boys, Better Future Pakistan, go unbeaten across a foreign field to lift the Norway Cup and it has heard its own voices, Eva B and Kaifi Khalil, rise from those same streets until the world had no choice but to listen.”

Khan said football was more than just a game and music was more than just sound; both were reasons for people to forget their differences and share love.

“‘Sway’ is ultimately a celebration of a simple but powerful idea: Pakistan’s football dream is alive, it belongs to the entire country and it deserves a soundtrack,” the statement read.

In a story posted to his Instagram account on Monday, he said the world didn’t revolve around family-centric content like Pakistan’s media ecosystem did and that international streaming networks will want something more.

“While they will undoubtedly highlight the positive, culturally rich aspects of Pakistan, their business model thrives on unfiltered realism. They will demand stories rooted in true events — gripping true-crime, political thrillers and deep dives into the complexities of our institutional systems,” the actor pointed out.

He said this raised an important question, “In a society where the government consistently enforces a ‘ban culture’, are we truly ready to welcome global OTT platforms?”

Khan said Pakistani creators had been boxed in when it came to what they can and can not make, facing “severe censorship whenever they attempt to touch upon politics, crime, or history”.

“Until we dismantle this ban culture and allow artists to show reality, we are simply not ready for the open landscape of streaming.”

Khan’s statement comes after Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal announced on Sunday that the government was in talks to get Pakistani films and dramas on Netflix.

The minister said Pakistani films and dramas were “second to none, commanding immense demand and heartfelt appreciation across the globe”.

He also announced Pakistan was working on its own OTT platform to increase media exports. Iqbal said both were steps taken to counter “regional politics” which denied Pakistan its due share of global audiences.

Earlier, filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar had raised the same concerns as the minister about a “neighbouring country” using its political influence to sideline Pakistani content on OTT platforms.

She said she was hopeful things would change in the future, especially with Pakistan’s first Netflix show, which she said “will come out in the next year or so”.

The veteran actor posted a reel on her Instagram account on Monday laying out her thoughts on the film and how it left her grieving for her “brothers” in Indian Punjab.

Ansari said she had heard a lot about the film, “but what I saw… left me in grief”. She said she was a big fan of Dosanjh’s work covering such sensitive issues “with great courage”.

She said she had a particularly hard time seeing people of the same faith turn against each other, as was shown in the film, which was an unfortunate reality on both sides of the border.

“There used to be people in the world who would sacrifice their lives for their principles, their nations, their integrity. Where are they now?” Ansari asked.

She said there used to be “exemplary people” who would struggle for what they believed and go to war for their people. “Where are such principled people today? You just don’t see them nowadays,” she said.

She said the film had been taken down in India, but was available online for anyone who wanted to see it. She also said she hadn’t been able to sleep properly since she’d seen the film a couple of days ago.

Satluj did not get a theatrical release in India and was instead released directly onto Indian platform Zee5 on July 3. The film was taken off the platform just two days later.

The movie is inspired by the life of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who investigated allegations of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings during the separatist insurgency in Indian Punjab — before he himself went missing.

He was later found to have been abducted and murdered. Several police officers were eventually convicted for their role in the killing.

In a reel posted to his Instagram account on Saturday, the actor looked straight into camera and said he didn’t have much writing or acting to do nowadays, so he was considering becoming an armchair critic on social media.

“Do you know what the best job nowadays is? The best job is, if you don’t have any work to do, you are a useless person who has failed in life, you can’t do anything, just start criticising people. Disrespect your colleagues, criticise them, spew venom against them even. Say whatever comes to mind about them. That will get you your likes.”

Ahmed admitted the job didn’t pay especially well, but said it comes with an even grander prize: viral fame. “People were ridiculed, you spoke nonsense about them, but you got your likes, you got your viewership, your video went viral,” he said.

The actor said he was thinking of taking the activity up, but couldn’t figure out where to start and who to criticise first. “The actor who stands outside in the middle of a heatwave and acts for you? Maybe we should criticise him? It’ll be fun, we’ll get our likes.”

He also had a second potential target in mind. “Or maybe that poor director who screams from 9am to midnight, to the point where he can simply scream no more. The one who keeps an eye on everything, dialogues, wardrobes, sets, maybe we should criticise him? What do you think, we’ll get our likes, right?” he said.

“Because I am useless, I don’t have anything to do, nobody asks after me, but I can do this. It’s so easy… So, what do you say, should I start?” the actor said to viewers.

Ahmed isn’t the first to criticise sharp-tongued critics, especially ones who tend to cross a line or rely heavily on debasing their subjects rather than helping them improve their craft.

In May, Feroze Khan raised objections to uninformed criticism from people who had no “knowledge or insight” into the craft and were just reviewing dramas on YouTube.

A couple of weeks before that, in April, industry veteran Bushra Ansari took Firdous Jamal to the cleaners over the unkind words he had for their colleagues.

Agha Ali also thought some critics go too far in their critique — especially when they start critiquing things like wardrobe choices, which aren’t in the actor’s control.

In a post on Instagram, Riaz said his film The Colour of My Heart (Rung Hai Dil Ka Mere Dil Ka) will have its international premiere at the 49th Asian American International Film Festival (AAIFF) in New York City.

The director said he and his team could not have wished for a more special return of the work to New York, where it began as his film thesis in university well over a decade ago and where much of the post-production work had been completed.

The caption said the Pakistani team were thrilled to be able to celebrate their work with team members in New York and to give New Yorkers a “window into a vital part of [Pakistani] culture”.

The film, which follows Mohyeddin’s remarkable career and life between the UK and Pakistan, intertwines the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz into the story.

Presented by the late human rights activist Dr Arfa Sayeda Zehra, the work is an ode to cultural giants and to the fallibility of a man whose influence on Pakistan’s cultural scene lives on through his work on stage and on screen.

The film began screening in Pakistani theatres on February 6, just a week shy of the third anniversary of Mohyeddin’s passing. After a limited cinema run, the filmmaker says he plans to bring the film back to Pakistani screens this autumn.

The AAIFF will run from July 30 to August 9, with The Colour of My Heart screening on the festival’s last day at 2pm local time. Tickets are available on the festival’s website.

In a post shared on X on Sunday, the minister said Pakistani films and dramas were “second to none, commanding immense demand and heartfelt appreciation across the globe”. He said the entertainment industry was a “vital cornerstone for our national export strategy” under his ministry’s Uraan Pakistan programme.

Uraan Pakistan is an initiative focusing on the government’s 5Es National Economic Transformation Plan — Exports, E-Pakistan, Environment & Climate Change, Energy & Infrastructure and Equity & Empowerment.

He said global Over the Top (OTT) platforms were “critical gateways” to get Pakistani content to international audiences, but “they have unfortunately been weaponised by regional politics for too long, denying Pakistani content its rightful, due space”.

The minister said the government was “in talks with Netflix and other global streaming giants to adjust the regional framework”. The goal, he said, was to “secure an equitable share of space and open sustainable partnership avenues for Pakistani creators”.

Additionally, he said the government was also working to launch an indigenous OTT platform to take Pakistan’s films and TV shows to the world.

Salman Iqbal, the CEO of ARY Digital, seemed more keen on the latter proposal. Responding to the minister’s post, he said Pakistan should not be relying on others.

Championing the development of a homegrown streaming platform, he said they had already worked very hard to popularise Pakistani media in the world and the country had the necessary technology and creative skill to make it happen.

The media mogul said ARY Digital had been approached by Netflix for content but had refused the streaming giant’s advances. He said the audience for Urdu content was over a billion people, enough for Pakistan to chart its own path forward.

Earlier, filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar had raised the same concerns as the minister about a “neighbouring country” using its political influence to sideline Pakistani content on OTT platforms.

She said she was hopeful things would change in the future, especially with Pakistan’s first Netflix show, which she said “will come out in the next year or so”.

Scouting bounty hunters to track and disarm Krem, she enlists Supergirl. Superman’s cousin — though no less powerful — was out celebrating her 21st birthday by getting drunk under the rays of this planet’s Red Sun, which negates her race’s superpowers (there is no other way for Kryptonians to get intoxicated). Accompanying her is Krypto, the super dog, who is also nearly depleted of his god-tier powers.

Though Ruthye is initially told off, her quest is eventually taken up by Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) when Krem shoots Krypto with a poison that only he has the antidote for.

The two girls spend months chasing Krem across the galaxies, braving bad interstellar transits, corrupt alien populaces, space pirates, dinosaurs and two-bit aliens who want to kill Superman for putting their relatives behind bars. At one point, they even outrun a magical spell to the end of time itself while riding the super horse, Comet.

DC Films’ new Supergirl is only good enough to land a spot in the temporary nook of one’s prefrontal cortex, a wasteland reserved for memories that die fast

This is the story of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a surprisingly low-key, critically acclaimed eight-issue comic by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely that was good enough for an Eisner nomination — the Oscars of the comic-book world.

On the flip side, its on-screen equivalent, Supergirl, is only good enough to land a spot in the temporary nook of one’s prefrontal cortex — a wasteland reserved for memories that die fast.

Written by actress-turned-debuting screenwriter Ana Nogueira, this apparently “brilliant screenplay” — according to DC films’ co-chief James Gunn — is, I believe, ‘a masterclass in screenwriting’. A masterclass in how to make a unique comic book sound blatantly boisterous and banal.

While I am not the biggest fan of Tom King’s prose — Ruthye’s front-facing monologues can’t seem to decide between modern or classic prose — that story at least unfolded layers of emotion in the simplest, perhaps a tad too relaxed, narrative manner possible. Relaxed doesn’t mean bad, by the way.

The film mangled the same beats into something nearly unrecognisable. Teeming with uninspiring costumes, environments and character designs right out of a Sci-fi TV channel show, Supergirl’s creative mechanics think it is cool to emulate Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

A better, and perhaps more unique choice, would have been to use the slightly mellow pace and narrative of the comic, which already has its fair share of action sequences. (It is a superhero comic — why wouldn’t it have big action sequences?)

I’ve always believed that if a story doesn’t sound fresh on paper — and I am not just talking about how well the action or dialogue reads in screenplay form — there is a high chance it won’t be directed any better. Enter here director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella).

His pedestrian choices in camera placement — opting for maximum coverage (ie basic angles) for the edit — remind you why a “director’s point-of-view” means squat in today’s world. Tone, pacing, emotion and the whole package of cinematic sense and sensibility are replaced by a visionless blur, where even a comic-book fan like me is bored to death.

The only slight saving grace comes from Milly Alcock as Supergirl — don’t buy into the internet’s negativity — who carries the weight of this dead enterprise quite admirably on her little shoulders.

But there is only so much she can do when bombastic blandness and cameos (Jason Momoa plays Lobo in two needless appearances) take un-super precedence.

Also starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Eve Ridley as Krem and Ruthye, Supergirl is released by WB and HKC with a PG censor certificate. Chances are, you’ll be bored

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, July 12th, 2026